


we shall not cease

by kangeiko



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: 5 Things, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-08
Updated: 2006-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things Jack did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we shall not cease

**Author's Note:**

> title from: we shall not cease from exploration. and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time. _T.S. Eliot_

  
Jack's first taste of a girl came when he was but twelve years old, and the barmaid's wee daughter had shyly approached him. He'd turned her down, flustered, and had not expected her to return.

She did, of course. (He knows better now.)

He'd been swimming at the time, and had not expected his ankles to be grabbed, nor to be tussled underwater. As it came to it, then, he did not mind, for she smelled nice and tasted sweet and salty, like rum and sea across his lips.

*

Jack's first taste of rum came when he was but ten years old, with nut-brown limbs and teeth rotting from sugar cane. His cheek had swelled to the size of a plum, and his mam had worried herself sick that t'were mumps, or gangrene, or worse. She'd grabbed him by the arm and dragged him, screaming to the barber's, to get it seen to, "and don't you come home without it fixed!"

The barber had turned out poorly, with fever or the like, and in his place had been his apprentice. The apprentice would have done well enough to stick to his knives and stay well away from pliers, but Jack was gripping to the arms of the chair by that point, as the boy set his face and leaned over him. He'd stuck one hand on Jack's forehead and one on the pliers, and had tugged impatiently on the rotted tooth. Once - twice - the rotted thing did not give, not even a smidge.

Never trust a boy to do a man's work, Jack had learned from that point, because the boy had not the strength for it. He'd taken his hand off of Jack's sweat-threaded forehead and gripped the pliers with both hands, squeezing as hard as he could.

The tooth - rotted from the inside out - shattered.

Shards flew apart in Jack's mouth, lodging in his cheeks and driving deep into his gums, and he did what anyone would have done in his place: he howled, kicked the apprentice as hard as he could between the legs, and ran home as fast as his legs could carry him, clutching his swollen cheek.

His mam, God rest 'er, had neither the time nor inclination to tend to the apprentice's mishaps in any gentle way. She'd fished a bottle of some amber liquid from deep inside her skirts, tipped Jack's head back and poured a good half of it down Jack's throat. He coughed and sputtered, and she bore him no mind, waiting 'til he was laid out before grabbing the fire tongs and dragging the remainder of the tooth out by the roots.

"Just be glad I didn't dip you in the sea to clean it," she'd said, and Jack had thought bitterly that it could not have hurt more.

*

Jack's first taste of the sea came when he was six years old, and his tiny wee sister Rosie dropped her boot over the dock. As boots were no small thing to lose, and as Rosie were really too delicate to do without, Jack had done the manly thing and gone after the dratted boot, and maybe pearls, too.

'Course, he didn't have the slightest idea how to swim, and Rosie'd screamed for their mam to drag him out from beneath the pier, where he'd been clinging desperately for dear life.

"You're altogether too much work for me, Jack," she'd sighed, and reddened his behind, the salt of his tears mixing with the sea on his lips. She'd dumped him back in the shallows the week after, though, with firm instructions to not get too far out 'til he learned t'swim.

She was a sensible woman, was Jack's mam. No son of _hers_ would grow up to be afraid of the sea.

*

Jack's first taste of the _Pearl_ came when he was four years old, clinging to his daddy's ankle and listening to tales of days past. His mam was nursing Rosie in the far corner, smiling at them both and shaking her head.

"You indulge him," she'd scolded gently, and Jack's daddy had smiled.

"I suppose. It would be worse if I didn't. Think how he could turn out."

They'd laughed, then, a little sorrowfully, and Jack had not understood, but laughed along. He'd held his arms out for sugar cane and his dad had obligingly given him a stick, stroking his blonde curls. "You don't look a thing like him, Jack," his dad had said. "Perhaps it is for the best."

*

Jack's first taste of piracy came when he had no years at all. He knew nothing about it of course, as he had been safe inside his mam at the time, and she was not one to gossip and tell fishwives' tales of those long dead. Not _his_ mam.

Elizabeth had always been a terribly sensible woman.

*

  
fin


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